


this is not a temporary love

by acollectionofdaydreams



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, Everybody Lives, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Holidays, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, canon compliant through 4x10, idiots to lovers, they're so dumb yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:28:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21655270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acollectionofdaydreams/pseuds/acollectionofdaydreams
Summary: It's been months since they got Eliot back and banished the monster, but Eliot and Q still haven't talked about their feelings because they both think it's one-sided. On an ill-advised whim, Eliot asks Q to fake a relationship with him through Christmas just to get their well-meaning friends off their backs for the holidays.
Relationships: Margo Hanson & Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater & Julia Wicker, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 31
Kudos: 205





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Everything is the same through 4x10 then basically there is no sister, no qualice, no mirror world, and they save Eliot somehow. I don't care how, but it happened. Also no Fillory time jump. All of this starts a couple of months after that!

It was two weeks before Christmas, and the penthouse was buzzing with the full spectrum of holiday cheer or lack thereof. 

Julia had made it her personal mission to cheer them all up with the spirit of Christmas, citing that they all deserved a reason to celebrate after the year they’d had. For his part, Penny didn’t really seem to care about the Christmas spirit himself, but he was keeping his mouth shut and doing as Julia asked when she demanded they travel all over town in search of decorations and party supplies. 

Alice and Kady were mostly amused but too busy to really be invested in the cause. They were tied up with Library and hedge related quests of their own. They’d promised to be home for Christmas though. Together. Because they were a couple now too.

Margo really and truly gave the least fucks out of all of them, considering her Fillory preoccupation. She had spent the last several months knee deep in Fillorian politics getting her self unbanished. Josh, loyal Golden Retriever that he was, hadn’t left her side. Their newly minted relationship was a whole ordeal in and of itself. The two of them weren’t around much, but they would be present for the actual holiday as well.

Quentin was dutifully doing whatever Julia told him to, having declined his mother’s halfhearted invitation to come over for Christmas. His recovery had taken precedent over any ongoing quests, and it was pretty touch and go how he was handling all of it on any given day. He was a little excited about Julia's party though, even if he tried to hide it.

Eliot was still just kind of taking it day by day with his own, mostly physical, recovery. He wasn’t about to ruin anyone’s holiday cheer, but well, Christmas had sort of been bittersweet for him for a long while now. It was just that way when you disowned your entire family at eighteen years old and spent every holiday since alone or with friends. C’est la vie. 

He wasn’t really alone in that particular boat anymore though. The thing was, none of them really had any family that they wanted to see. They were a bunch of misfits in that way, whether by choice or circumstance. On the one hand, that was sort of nice for them. It took the pressure out of the holiday celebrations in many ways. However, it didn’t get rid of one thing, which really only Eliot and Quentin were the ones currently dealing with.

Everyone had paired off, except for them.

Penny and Julia, Kady and Alice, Margo and Josh.

The three couples all had their own shit to deal with too from Fillory to the Library to hedge rebellions. In the middle of all of that though, Quentin and Eliot were just kind of existing. 

To be fair, that was exactly what they both wanted and needed because it really had been a rough year. Even if they hadn’t been on board, Julia and Margo had threatened to all but lock them in the apartment to recover after everything ended. It was the necessary thing and they knew it. It still left them just kind of on their own though, with a lot of unspoken mess between them that neither had made a move to figure out. 

Margo hadn’t been subtle about her opinions on that, despite the limited time they’d spent together in recent months. She told Eliot pretty much every time they skyped via mirror enchantment that he needed to just suck it up and tell Quentin how he felt, for better or for worse. She was probably right too. He was the one who had shut things down between them to begin with, so it really was his move if he wanted to fix it. 

Quentin was his own person in all of it too though, and he’d not made any moves to show that he was still interested. They spent practically all of their time together these days, and nothing had even come remotely close to crossing the platonic line. Well, for them anyways. That line had always been blurry to begin with.

Regardless, if he thought Quentin even sort of still wanted him, he’d probably have made a move weeks ago. As it was, he was just living with the consequences of his own stupid actions and doing his best to keep Quentin as a friend. It was far from a consolation prize anyway.

Still, their complicated past aside, they were sort of the only single ones in their friend group, and holidays were great for making things like that especially obvious.

Eliot only really realized it when he was sitting in the kitchen half listening to Julia go over her checklist for the Christmas dinner party.

“Penny and I will be handling the main dish, Alice and Kady are bringing the wine, and Margo and Josh are on dessert duty, though I fear what that means,” she was listing off, mostly to herself, while Eliot nodded along politely. She had a point with Josh on the desserts. They’d need to label them to separate the hallucinogens from the normal pastries. She continued, “Eliot, could you and Quentin cover a couple of side dishes?”

He looked up at his name and frowned at her, confusion furrowing his brow at her request. It was fine, and he figured Quentin would be up for it too, but what was with the joint food assignment? And why not just ask Q herself?

“I’d have to ask Q, but I think we could manage that,” he said slowly.

“Okay, great!” she beamed and went back to typing away on her laptop.

He stared at her for a minute.

“Why ‘me and Q’, though?” he asked.

She stopped typing and turned to him. It was apparently her turn to look at him like he’d grown an extra head, but frankly he had no idea why. She was the one being weird here.

“I mean, I can ask Kady and Alice if you don’t think you’ll be up to it,” she hedged, “but I thought you guys might like something to bring too. Unless Q’s changed his mind about going to his mom’s?”

Her answer really only stirred up more confusion in his mind. What would Q going to his mom’s have to do with the two of them bringing dishes to Christmas dinner? Even in that case, Eliot would still be there and able to contribute. The idea that he needed Quentin present to do so was honestly a little insulting to his culinary skills. He’d be doing all the cooking because Quentin was useless in the kitchen, and Julia of all people should know that. So what was with all the “you and Q” talk like they were a gross couple giving joint Christmas gifts? 

They exchanged confused stares for a few more seconds before Eliot suddenly got it.

Oh.

She thought.

 _Oh_.

A terrible, wonderful idea was forming in Eliot’s mind. He’d never claimed to be a saint, and when the universe hands you something like this on a silver platter, well, it’d be crazy not to seize the opportunity.

So, he shook his head.

“No, no worries. We’ll handle it,” he smiled at her.

She gave him a skeptical look in response but said, “Okay, let me know if anything changes.”

“Will do,” he said.

He rose from the table, slowly because magical axe wounds were a bitch like that even months later, and made his way toward the stairs.

He didn’t have to look very hard to find Quentin. He knocked on his bedroom door, nearly but not quite closed, and got a mumbled, “Come in.”

He pushed the door open and slipped inside, closing it behind him. 

Quentin was curled up at the head of his bed with a book pressed against his thighs. It was a very familiar position for him to be found in. 

He’d been better lately about the whole staying in bed all day thing, at his therapist’s insistence and also because Eliot dragged him outside for frequent walks, citing his own tense muscles as the reason for doing so. If Quentin suspected his ulterior motives, he didn’t call him out on it. When he got the chance though, he’d almost always retreat to a cozy surface with a book because he was just so very Quentin like that.

“Oh, hey,” he said.

He stuck an old receipt he was using as a bookmark into his book and set it aside.

“Hi,” Eliot said.

He walked over to the side of Quentin’s bed and gestured for him to budge over, and Quentin obliged with only a minor eye roll. Once they’d settled comfortably side by side against the headboard, Eliot turned his head to look at him. 

They often found themselves hanging out in one of their rooms like this at the apartment, given the whole only two people who weren’t otherwise occupied with a romantic partner and/or quest thing. So, Quentin was only really watching him with a curious look on his face more than anything. Still, Eliot felt his breath catch in his throat as he thought about what he’d come in there to say. It didn’t seem like such a stroke of genius under the careful stare of Quentin’s brown eyes. Was he actually crazy? 

“What’s up, El?” Quentin finally asked, like a normal person does when their friend is just sitting on their bed awkwardly staring at them. 

Jesus, pull it together, Eliot.

Eliot glanced down at Quentin’s mouth quickly before looking away and reaching out to brush off the knees of his own trousers. 

“Oh, nothing really,” he answered. “I was just talking to Julia about the Christmas party.”

Quentin laughed, letting Eliot off the hook for his awkward slip up. He was good like that. They’d gotten plenty of practice in ignoring those moments over the last few months.

“Yeah, she’s really getting into it,” he mused.

“Mhm,” Eliot agreed. “By the way, we’ve been assigned side dishes.”

“Oh, have we?” Quentin asked.

Why didn’t he find that weird? Why didn’t anybody find this weird besides Eliot?

“Yeah, uh,” Eliot continued, “pretty sure she thinks we’re dating, actually.”

He waited for an unbearable two second pause while Quentin processed.

“Um, what?” he finally asked.

Eliot glanced up at him and saw his brow furrowed in confusion.

“I could be wrong,” Eliot said. He wasn’t. “But I really got that vibe from her just now. She kind of insinuated that you and I might be going to your mom’s for Christmas together?”

Quentin sighed and looked at the wall opposite them with an exasperated expression.

Seeming more annoyed than anything, he said, “Sorry you had to deal with that. She thinks everyone’s in a relationship now just because she is.”

“Tell me about it,” Eliot sighed, “Margo’s been the same.”

All of Margo’s needling about his dating life had been entirely about Quentin actually, but there was no need to share that minor detail.

“I’ll talk to her,” Quentin said. 

They fell silent again and Eliot frowned. That wasn’t how this conversation was meant to go at all.

“Or,” he said.

Quentin looked at him curiously, and he forced himself to keep talking.

“We could just let her keep thinking that?” he asked.

Quentin stared at him for so long, unblinking, that Eliot was starting to think he might have broken him. Then he narrowed his eyes at Eliot.

“Why would we do that?” he asked.

Eliot shrugged. If you’re going to do something irretrievably stupid, might as well commit and go balls to the wall with it. That was his motto with these things anyway.

“Hear me out,” he said, turning sideways to face Quentin. Quentin’s confused frown quirked into the tiniest little smile before he settled into a more neutral expression and nodded for Eliot to carry on. 

“I’m just thinking it might make the holidays more bearable if everyone thinks we’re a couple,” Eliot explained, “for both of us.”

Quentin started to interrupt him, and he held up a finger to shush him. He got a bitchy little glare in response. God, Eliot loved Quentin’s sassy streak.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but all of our friends are couples. It’s frankly a little nauseating,” he said.

Quentin nodded sagely and asked, “You’re still upset about Margo and Josh getting together while you were gone, aren’t you?”

Eliot grimaced.

“Bambi can sleep with whoever she wants, but did it really have to be Josh? Like, _really_?”

Quentin laughed. This wasn’t his first time on the receiving end of this particular rant.

“Yeah, it is pretty weird,” he agreed.

Eliot shook himself like he could physically shake off the idea of it entirely.

“Anyways,” he said, “it would get Julia off your back about you needing to date someone, it would get Margo off my back about _me_ needing to date someone, and we wouldn’t have to be the awkward single friends at the Christmas party. Win-win. So, what do you think?”

It was weak as far as excuses to get closer to the boy he was secretly pining after go, but Quentin looked like he was seriously considering it, so Eliot added, “If anyone can pull off being a convincing couple, it’s gotta be the two people who’ve already raised a child together.”

The mood immediately shifted as Quentin visibly flinched and looked away, and Eliot silently cursed himself. He’s never seen a cautionary line he hasn’t immediately flung himself over, has he? He had a point, of course, but it still probably wasn’t the best thing to say. It was way past the extent to which they’d discussed _that time_ since he’d been back. Or ever, really.

Damage already done, he sat and watched Quentin think it all over.

Finally, he turned back to Eliot, a pained looking expression on his face.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked. “I mean, considering everything?”

Considering Eliot had fucked up their chance at a real relationship, had tried to declare his love and regret in a fifteen second window when he broke out of the happy place, and now that they could finally have it all, Quentin didn’t want it anymore and they were just awkwardly not discussing it while Eliot was helplessly in love with him? Yeah, considering all of that, it probably wasn’t a good idea. But that had never stopped him before.

“We’re mature adults, Q,” he said with a forced nonchalance. “I think we can handle it.”

Quentin frowned for a moment longer, a dozen emotions dancing across his face before he finally looked back up at him with an amused grin.

“Yeah, because mature adults fake a relationship to get their friends off their backs,” he said.

Eliot grinned back at him.

“Yes, exactly! See, you’re getting it now,” he said.

Quentin watched him with an amused expression for a couple of quiet seconds and shook his head until, all of a sudden, Mariah Carey’s voice broke through the silence from downstairs with “ _I don’t want a lot for Christmas….._ ” Julia’s off-key, but enthusiastic, singing followed.

Eliot raised an eyebrow at him, and Quentin snorted, which dissolved into a laugh.

“Uhhh, fine,” he groaned, still laughing as he looked up at the ceiling. “What the fuck, let’s do it.”

“Really?” Eliot asked.

He felt like his face was going to split from the uncontrollable grin that had taken over it. He’d known he was just this side of unhinged enough to do something like this, but he’d had his doubts about Q. Here he was though, looking at Eliot with the lightest expression he’d seen on his face in weeks at least.

“Sure, why not?” he asked. “Like you said, it can’t be that hard if Julia already thinks we’re together. I doubt anyone else will take much convincing.”

Eliot could think of one short, brown haired Fillorian High King who was going to be harder to fool, but that was his problem to deal with. 

“We should probably set some ground rules though,” Quentin said.

Right, ground rules. That was a good idea, since it was fake and all and Eliot didn’t need to get carried away. He didn’t need Quentin to tell him that he was going to have to keep himself on a short leash for this little venture, so he started with the obvious.

“We only need to act like we’re dating when we’re in front of other people,” he said.

“Right,” Quentin agreed, “but we probably do need to do some PDA, right? No one will believe it’s real if we don’t.”

“Oh, Q, my sweet summer child,” Eliot said, and Quentin made a face at him which he ignored, “we’re going to have to be the grossest couple you’ve ever seen if Margo is going to buy that you’re my boyfriend.”

He must have imagined the way Quentin’s face turned just a little bit red at that. He recovered though to sarcastically say, “Yeah, that tracks.”

Ignoring him, Eliot continued, “So, yes to PDA but we act normal when we’re alone. What else?”

Quentin chewed on his lower lip for a second then said, “We should probably go on a date or two.”

Eliot tried very hard to not let his face show that his entire heart had just dropped out of his ass as he asked, “Come again?”

“I mean, that’s what real couples do, right?” he asked. “Jules is gonna think it’s weird if we don’t at least go on, like, a first date so that she can grill me about it for details.”

“Hmm,” Eliot hummed. “Good point. So, I take you out on a fake date and woo you so that Julia will believe you’re head over heels for me. Got it.”

There was that stubborn little blush again on Quentin’s cheeks, and Eliot was starting to think he might make a personal game of seeing how many times he could make that happen over the next two weeks. 

“Anything else?” he asked.

Quentin said, “Just until Christmas, right? Then we break up?”

Eliot swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded.

“Right, just until Christmas.”

Quentin nodded, glanced down at his hands, and picked at a loose string on his comforter before silently doing a tut to repair it. Then he looked up.

“I think that’s it for rules,” he said, “but just. If it gets too weird, for either of us, then we stop. No questions asked.”

“That sounds fair,” Eliot agreed.

He felt a complicated little knot beginning to tangle in his chest. Of course, Quentin would want an easy out. Because this was all just pretend, and it wasn’t his fault that Eliot was over here with all these big, messy feelings for him. He wouldn’t make that Q’s problem either. He’d done enough to break things between them by doing just that. So, he held out his hand for Quentin to shake on it.

“Fake boyfriends for Christmas, then?” he asked.

Quentin rolled his eyes at him and shook his hand.

“Yeah, alright,” he said.


	2. Chapter 2

Things didn’t change that night really, because Quentin spent most of his evening in his room reading after Eliot’s interruption. It was the next morning when Eliot came down for breakfast that it all started to get interesting.

Quentin and Julia were sitting at the dining table in the middle of an in-depth discussion about the inconsistencies in The Wandering Dune when Eliot cheerfully made his way around them, stopping to grab hold of Quentin’s chin and turn his face so that he could give him a kiss on the cheek.

“Good morning,” he said happily, as if that wasn’t weird at all for them.

Quentin felt his entire face flush, and he hurriedly glanced at Julia for her reaction. To his surprise though, she wasn’t even looking at them. She was focused on her bowl of cereal and only gave a half hearted, “Morning” to Eliot.

Quentin stared at her, mouth agape. She definitely saw Eliot kiss him. So, what the fuck?

Eliot carried on making breakfast, and Julia picked up their discussion again like nothing had happened. Quentin did his best to not interrupt her and confirm that she had in fact seen that because that would definitely be weird, right?

When Eliot was finished, he plopped down in the chair next to Julia, across from Quentin. He gave Quentin a devilish little grin before reaching across the table to rub his thumb across the corner of his mouth.

“You had a crumb there,” he said.

Quentin glanced between him and Julia, again noting the lack of reaction, and raised his eyebrows at Eliot.

“Uh, thanks,” he said.

“Mhm,” Eliot hummed.

The morning and afternoon followed in pretty much exactly that fashion. Quentin was absolutely dumbfounded. 

He’d honestly not believed Eliot when he said that Julia thought they were already together. He knew his best friend, and she would have been pressing him for details if she thought it was true. But when Eliot cuddled up to him on the sofa and Quentin allowed himself to be held while they watched whatever Hallmark movie Julia was forcing on them, she didn’t even bat an eye. 

About halfway through the movie, he felt Eliot laugh under his breath. He twisted around in his arms to look at his amused face.

“What?” he whispered.

“Told you so,” Eliot said.

Quentin looked at Julia, who was not paying them any attention, and rolled his eyes. Just for that, he leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to Eliot’s lips. It was just a little peck. He’d seen Eliot and Margo kiss more passionately. Eliot jumped like he’d been shocked though and raised his eyebrows at Quentin. 

Yeah, maybe he hadn’t really thought about the fact that they hadn’t kissed in this timeline since the threesome first year. Maybe he’d forgotten just how Eliot’s lips felt. How it felt to be allowed that simple intimacy with him. Maybe it was also weird how natural it felt to kiss him, even with all of that.

Feeling a lowkey freak out coming on that he was not remotely ready to deal with, Quentin just shrugged at him and settled himself back in Eliot’s arms to watch the rest of the movie. Perhaps kissing Eliot as revenge was a weird system but like, this whole thing was weird. And only getting weirder. 

And it’s not like he minded kissing Eliot.

Which. Yeah. That was a whole other weird part of this.

He knew deep down that if he were really a decent person, he would call the whole fake boyfriend thing off right then and there. Eliot was doing this out of some sick need to stick it to Margo or something, but Quentin was a little bit more selfish than that.

It’s just. He was still in love with Eliot, and he’d long ago stopped denying that to himself. It was just a part of who he was after fifty years of loving the man. So intrinsically tied into his being that he didn’t know where to begin to remove it, and he’d given up trying. 

Eliot didn’t want that from him anymore though, and Quentin had also accepted that long ago. Right about the time Eliot rejected him on the throne room steps at Whitespire. 

He was _happy_ being Eliot’s friend. Really, he was. But when Eliot came to him and asked him to be his pretend boyfriend, well, how could he say no? Of course it was going to hurt like hell when it was over. He’d resigned himself to that in the few seconds it took him to agree in the first place. 

However, if he got a few weeks of getting to feel loved by Eliot again and still got to keep him as a friend at the end of it, then it was a fair price to pay.

It’s Julia that was really throwing him here.

He and Eliot decided that their “first date” would be the following evening. In reality, they were probably just going to go get dinner and then go back to the apartment, but that wasn’t how he was going to sell it to her at all. This, he thought, was definitely going to be the thing that made her question him.

That afternoon, while it was just him and Jules in the apartment, he’d been planning how to slip his date into the conversation when she gave him the perfect opportunity.

“I’m thinking about ordering pizza tonight. You in?” she asked.

He shifted in his seat, feigning nervousness, and looked down at his phone.

“Actually, I have a date with Eliot tonight,” he said.

She didn’t miss a beat.

“Oh, it’s about time he took you on a proper date,” she replied.

Quentin’s head shot up. She was just looking at him, calm as ever. 

Before he could stop himself, he asked, “Wait, what?”

“Q,” she said, her voice patronizing and sweet, “did you really think I didn’t know? I’m your best friend.”

Quentin sputtered.

“But, I, we…,” he said, not managing to reach a coherent end to any of those sentences.

Was she being serious right now?

Julia patted his hand.

“I knew you’d tell me when you were ready, and I’m just really happy for you,” she said.

“I, uh, yeah, me too,” he agreed.

He could not believe this. Eliot was right. She really thought they’d been dating for God knows how long. Even worse, he couldn’t correct her without blowing the whole fake dating cover story.

What the fuck.

“It must be a relief to finally be telling people,” she continued. “I mean, you don’t have to sleep in separate bedrooms just for my sake anymore.”

And that, well, what? He supposed it made sense that she’d see it that way. This was not a scenario he and Eliot had calculated for though. 

“Yeah,” he agreed, hoping it wasn’t a misstep, “it’s nice for you to finally know.”

She grinned at him before launching into his lap and nearly knocking him over with a fierce hug. He sighed and returned her tight squeeze.

“I want all the saucy details,” she said into his ear. 

“Uh huh,” he agreed and patted her back.

“Seriously,” she continued, “I can tell how happy he makes you, and you deserve good things, Q.”

He almost told her the truth after that. She was so clearly happy about the idea of them being together, and for what? A couple of weeks of meaningless flirting then a fake break up?

For the first time so far, he felt guilty about the idea of lying to their friends. 

But also, if Julia could tell how real his feelings were, then what did that say about how well he was hiding them from Eliot? Was Eliot feeling sorry for poor Q who just couldn’t get over him? Was that why he’d suggested this in the first place? Get Margo off his back and give Quentin some closure on their relationship?

He placed his chin on her shoulder and sighed.

Fuck.

When it came time for their “date,” he did put in the effort to look nice. It might not have been real, but it needed to look like it was. Also, he liked the idea of Eliot thinking he looked good. Sue him.

What he hadn’t taken into account was that Eliot would also be putting in an effort to look like this was a real date. 

He hadn’t seen Eliot much all day, which he hadn’t given very much thought to, but it became clear when they met at the bottom of the stairs that night that he’d been spending that time going completely and totally overboard in the very best ways imaginable.

His hair was immaculately styled, and his face was shaven in a way that left just the cleanest line of stubble behind, which was giving him the jawline of Quentin’s absolute dreams. His outfit wasn’t strikingly different from what one might expect Eliot to wear on a night out, but the deep forest greens and blacks were paired together with his black overcoat in a way that brought out the hazel in his eyes and had Quentin taking a gulp as he gave him a more than obvious once over.

He supposed it looked convincing if Julia happened to be watching, but Jesus Christ, he did not need Eliot to see him blatantly checking him out like that.

Eliot had obviously seen though, and he was giving Quentin a very knowing grin.

“Like what you see, Q?” he asked.

Quentin pulled himself together and rolled his eyes. No need to let Eliot get a bigger head than he already had.

“You look nice,” he said.

Eliot grinned before taking a step back to unashamedly give Quentin a once over as well. He suddenly felt insecure in his plain button up and black skinny jeans and reached down to tug at the bottom of his sleeve. Eliot only gave him a sincere smile though when he brought his gaze back up to his eyes.

“You do too,” he said.

From the living room, Julia called, “Just go already and stop being gross!”

They both laughed, and then Penny chimed in less kindly, “Seriously, I’m gonna throw up.”

Eliot’s smile dropped from his face, and Quentin gave him a warning look. Julia teasing them was good-natured, but 23’s derisive attitude wasn’t quite so well received with, well, anyone. There were just some fights not worth picking though. Or maybe Quentin was just tired of fighting altogether. Either way, Eliot had yet to reach that same conclusion, and that didn’t appear to have changed in the last five minutes.

Eliot interrupted his glare in the direction of the living room to look back at him, and then his irritation turned into something Quentin could only interpret as mischief. Eliot took a step towards him and wrapped his arm around his shoulders to lead him to the door.

Loudly enough to be heard from the living room, he said, “Come on, Q, let’s go have an _amazing_ date, and then maybe we can come home and have super loud sex.”

Quentin shoved his elbow into Eliot’s ribs and said, “Oh my God, El, shut up.”

Eliot only snickered though and continued, in a louder voice, “I might even forget the silencing wards!”

Julia’s amused laughter could be heard as they made their way into the hallway and shut the door, and Quentin turned to Eliot and groaned.

“Was that really necessary?” he asked.

Eliot gave him a very amused grin and said, “Well, they definitely believe we’re a couple now. Don’t you think?”

Quentin glared at him for only a second before giving into a laugh.

“Whatever,” he said, shaking his head, “let’s just go.”

They fell into a comfortable silence as they made their way down the hall and into the elevator. When they stepped inside, Quentin pressed the ground floor button and leaned against the cool marble wall. 

“Are you excited to go sit at McDonald’s or something in our super nice clothes?” he asked jokingly.

Eliot, though, responded with a look that could only be described as abject horror.

He said, “Q, darling, I have never once taken a date to McDonald’s, and I do not intend to start tonight.”

Quentin laughed at him, not sure how else to respond to _that_ , and said, “Yeah, but this isn’t a real date.”

Eliot tsked at him as the elevator stopped and gestured to the open doors for him to walk out first.

“How are you supposed to convince Julia I’ve swept you off your feet if I don’t actually take you on the best date of your life?” he asked. “Sorry, but you’re really not that great of an actor.”

“Hey,” Quentin protested.

Eliot shrugged, “I said what I said.”

Quentin laughed under his breath despite himself and followed Eliot through the lobby of the building.

“What exactly are we doing then?” he asked.

Eliot turned to give him a smirk over his shoulder.

“Oh, you’ll see.”

Despite Eliot’s reassurances, their destination didn’t actually begin to make sense very quickly. Soon though, Quentin realized they were going to… Brakebills?

Before he could ask, Eliot said, “No, this is not our final stop. Be patient.”

Quentin scoffed and looked at him.

“I didn’t even say anything!” he argued.

Eliot laughed.

“You didn’t have to. I can hear your gears grinding from all the way over here,” he said.

Quentin would argue that he didn’t pout in response to that but like, it was a really close call.

Turns out, Eliot was taking them into the Cottage, brushing past the confused students, and leading them straight into Margo’s old room, which was thankfully not being lived in by any unsuspecting first years.

He made a beeline for the closet and peeked inside.

“Oh thank God, it’s still there,” he said.

Quentin stepped forward to try and get a peek at what he was looking at.

“What is?” he asked.

“Our British pub portal,” Eliot explained, casual as ever.

Quentin sputtered, “We’re going to London?!”

“Yeah,” Eliot grinned at him, “Now hush so I can get this right.”

He did a series of complicated looking tuts on the portal that Quentin was in no way able to follow before stepping back to admire his work.

“That should do it,” he said, mostly to himself because Quentin didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. He turned around to Quentin and held out his hand. “Come on, let’s go!”

Quentin looked around them and laughed incredulously. What the hell, he thought.

So, he took Eliot’s hand and followed him through the portal, only to step into a bustling pub. Someone brushed past them, seemingly far too many beers in to have any awareness that they had just quite literally appeared out of thin air.

“Welcome to London!” Eliot exclaimed.

Before Quentin could take in the moment, Eliot was dragging him through the crowd and out the door onto cobblestone streets. It looked to be early evening, and there were plenty of people milling about but nothing like the New York crowds. 

“Wait, isn’t it like midnight here?” Quentin asked, realizing suddenly that timezones were a thing.

“Nope,” Eliot said. “We’re five hours in the past. It’s 7pm, just like it was when we left New York.”

Quentin looked around again, more amazed at his surroundings with that new bit of information.

“What?” he asked, “I mean, how?”

Eliot shrugged.

“That horomancy elective had to come in handy at some point,” he explained. “Anyways, come on. We’re a few tube stops away from where we’re going.”

Baffled, Quentin could only follow Eliot’s lead as they descended underground and bought day tickets for the tube. True to his word, they were just a few stops away from where Eliot was taking them, which was apparently Hyde Park.

As soon as they got off the train, the platform was wildly more crowded than the previous station had been. London crowds are shockingly organized though, so they made it out of the fray and up the escalators without much fuss. When they made it outside, Quentin stopped dead in his tracks.

He knew where Eliot was taking them now because there was a giant carnival right in front of them.

Eliot, realizing Quentin had stopped, paused to grin at him.

“This is Winter Wonderland,” he explained. “It’s this big festival that happens every year here. It’s super cheesy and there’s like a 50/50 chance we might die on one of the rides, but they’ve got all this amazing food and Christmas lights, and I just thought it might be fun? Unless it’s too much.”

He was looking at Quentin like he was waiting for an answer, and he actually looked a little nervous. Like maybe he was realizing they were standing in the middle of London on a fake date. Quentin wasn’t thinking it was too much though. He was honestly struck speechless because it was maybe the most thought out thing anyone had done for him. He felt surprisingly emotional about it, actually.

He did his best not to let it all show on his face, though he knew from years of Julia telling him so that he wasn’t very good at that. Still, he turned to look at Eliot with the most composed smile he could give and said, “I love it, El. Really.”

Eliot exhaled and settled into a calmer smile himself.

“Great, let’s go then,” he said.

The whole park was like someone had taken every single idea one could come up with for a carnival and slapped it all together into one place. It was very sensory overload but not loud enough to be too overwhelming. They wandered through the shops and carnival rides for awhile until they found themselves in the German Christmas section and found a promising looking restaurant.

It was right across from what appeared to be a haunted mansion ride, which was not exactly what one might expect to find in a Winter festival but somehow didn’t look out of place there.

They had a nice dinner seated on the wooden benches outside the restaurant. It wasn’t anything special but like, they were at a festival in London so it was by definition pretty special already. They spent most of the time chatting about anything they might have talked about if they were just sitting on the sofa in the penthouse. TV shows they’d been binging, Margo’s drama in Fillory, the latest crazy rent requirements.

It was comforting, actually, that his rapport with Eliot had such a normal baseline these days. It had been a long time since they’d been able to just sit and be friends, and it was something Quentin missed a lot more than he’d realized.

The conversation eventually devolved to people watching, which was amusing with how much alcohol was clearly being consumed by many of the people walking by. 

Around that time was when Quentin remembered what Julia had said to him that afternoon. He waited for a lull in the conversation before deciding he was going to have to bring it up.

“So, uh, Julia said something earlier when I told her about our date,” he started.

Eliot turned to him and asked, “What did she say?”

Quentin watched a crowd of college students laugh as they walked by and picked up his plastic fork, turning it over in his hand.

“She made a comment about how we won’t have to sleep in separate rooms anymore, now that we’re telling people that we’re together,” he said.

There was a beat of silence, then Eliot said, “Ah. Didn’t think about that.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Quentin agreed.

Another beat of silence, then Eliot seemed to snap out of whatever trance he’d gone into. 

Cheerfully, he said, “I don’t mind snuggling if you don’t.”

Quentin stared at him.

“Uh, I,” he stammered.

Eliot burst into laughter. “Q, I'm kidding,” he said. “Seriously though, we don’t have to do anything about it if you don’t want to. Fuck what Julia or Penny thinks about us not sleeping in the same bed.”

Well, there was that. They didn’t really have to explain themselves to anyone, he supposed.

“Or we could platonically share a bed,” Eliot added. “It’d be like a sleepover every night. We could stay up late and gossip and make it a whole thing.”

Quentin snorted and asked, “Really? A sleepover?”

Eliot smiled at him like he was thrilled at Quentin finding his idea nonsensical. 

“I’m just saying I’m okay with either scenario,” he explained. “I can keep my hands to myself if you wanna shack up for the next two weeks. Or we could not.”

Quentin didn’t have to think it over to know which scenario he preferred. Of course he liked the idea of sharing a bed with Eliot every night. It was something he’d gotten very used to once upon a time, in a timeline that never was. The thing was, he knew he slept better with Eliot by his side, irritating as it was. And if Eliot was offering…

“Okay, that’s fine with me,” he said, nonchalant as he could.

Eliot agreed, “Okay, that’s settled then.” 

There was only the briefest silence before Eliot stood up, offering him a hand.

“I have an idea,” he said. “Come on.”

Eliot’s idea, as it turned out, involved dragging Quentin all the way to the opposite side of the park until they were standing underneath maybe the largest ferris wheel he’d ever seen in his life.

“Wow,” he breathed, looking up at the giant, shining thing.

He turned his head and found Eliot already looking at him.

“What do you say we go for a ride before we go back home?” he asked.

Quentin looked up at the ferris wheel then back to Eliot, who was watching him with the most hopeful expression.

“Why not?” he shrugged. “I mean, we’re here.”

Eliot laughed and rolled his eyes.

“Don’t hold back your excitement on my account, Q,” he said.

Quentin shoved his arm, but Eliot only grinned at him and swayed before dropping his arm around Quentin’s shoulders and leading him up to the line to buy tickets. After the attendant handed them over, Eliot waved his hand over them and then turned to show them to Quentin.

“Oh, would you look at that? We have priority passes now, which means we get our own pod,” he said.

Quentin gave him a look.

He said, “A pod? Is that really the best they could come up with for a name? It sounds like part of an alien spaceship.”

“Well, I don’t know, what would you call it then?” Eliot asked.

He thought for a minute.

“Yeah, I got nothing, actually,” he said.

Eliot beamed at him. He said, “Great, then let’s go get in the pod!”

“Shut up,” Quentin rolled his eyes.

They stepped up to the platform and climbed inside, and Quentin had to admit that he was glad Eliot had tampered with the tickets. It was plenty spacious, but he can’t imagine it would have been enjoyable with 6 people packed inside. This way, he and Eliot could slide into the bench facing out towards the carnival and have the view to themselves.

Quentin had always loved ferris wheels when he was a kid. There was the view at the top, of course, but that only lasted for a few seconds. The best part was the steady stop and start as you ascended because you got to take in the view from pretty much every angle and watch as it all slowly became smaller and smaller. All of the people and their worries and problems slowly fading away until they were just little dots beneath the buildings and treetops. It felt freeing in a way, like he could be above it all too, if only for a moment.

When he turned his head from the glittering crowd below them, he found Eliot next to him, staring off into the dark part of the park beyond the carnival instead. 

Quentin had the thought to ask him what was on his mind, but before he could, Eliot turned around and met his eyes. 

Eliot’s eyes were always unfairly pretty, but in this light, they were literally sparkling with the glow of the ferris wheel. As he looked at Quentin, the corners of his mouth turned up and settled into a soft little smile. 

It was like the rest of the world had disappeared, far below them, as the hushed moment fell over just the two of them.

Quentin’s eyes darted down to Eliot’s mouth just once then back up again. It was weird that they were just staring at each other, but he felt like a magnet, drawn in by some force larger than him, and he couldn’t look away. All he would have to do is lean in a few inches for their lips to touch. He could have sworn it looked like Eliot was thinking the same thing as he shifted his body inward ever so slightly. 

Then the ferris wheel came to a lurching stop.

They practically fell on top of each other, Quentin’s hand landing on Eliot’s knee as he grabbed blindly for something to hold onto. He pulled away quickly and looked up at Eliot, and the two of them started laughing. 

The speaker in the corner came to life and crackled as a tinny voice said, “We’ll be moving again shortly. Apologies for the bump!”

Quentin laughed, “Wow, nothing like a shot of adrenaline at 200 feet.”

Eliot hummed, “Exactly how I like all my dates to end.”

He fished around in his pocket until he pulled out his phone and unlocked the screen.

“If we’re stuck up here, we might as well take a few good selfies to show off how romantic we’re being,” he suggested.

Quentin said, “Yeah, makes sense.”

So, they scooted in close enough for Eliot to wrap his arm around Quentin’s shoulders and smile at the camera as he took a few photos.

“Okay, now some really gross coupley ones,” Eliot said.

He turned his head to press his lips to Quentin’s cheek, and Quentin gave a cheesy grin to the camera.

Eliot pulled away just enough to scroll through the photos and said, “That should do it.”

He opened up his Instagram and shared one of the ones where they were both smiling to his story. Then he shared the one where he was kissing Quentin’s cheek to just his close friends list, aka the intended audience.

“And now we wait for the rest of our friends to put the pieces together,” he said.

Then the ferris wheel lurched again and started moving downwards, back towards the ground and the world waiting for them below. Quentin tried very hard to pay attention to the glittering lights and not the weight of Eliot pressed against his side or his traitorous heart pounding in his chest.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enter Margo.

So maybe Eliot was a coward for not telling Margo about his deal with Quentin before their date. Or fake date. Whatever.

The point is, Eliot Waugh doesn’t do anything by halves, so he wasn’t just a coward. He was also an idiot. Because when his phone rang at God knows what time in the morning, he fumbled, saw her name, and answered her facetime call without bothering to fully open his eyes.

“What time is it?” he grumbled.

Margo’s way too chipper voice replied, “It’s time for you to wake up because I’m standing outside the apartment, and I need you to let me in.”

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and sat up, giving her an unimpressed look.

“You could have called Julia,” he accused.

“I could have,” she shrugged.

He threw the covers off of him and went to stand up, but then there was a noise from behind him that was unmistakably the sound of another person in his bed waking up, and he froze. Shit. He’d forgotten Quentin had slept in his room last night. They’d been so tired when they’d gotten home that they’d pretty much immediately passed out on their own sides of the bed, so in reality, the situation was about as innocent as it could get. That wasn’t how it looked though.

Margo was giving him a much more interested look from his phone screen now as she clocked the situation as well. Clearly she was not reading it innocently, which he supposed was the point after all. This just wasn’t exactly the way he'd planned to go about it.

“El, is there someone in your bed?” she asked, barely biting back a devious smile.

Then, just because the world constantly conspires to make Eliot’s life more difficult, Quentin asked, “Do I hear Margo?”

Margo’s jaw dropped, and she stuttered out a laugh.

She all but yelled, “Are you in bed with _Quentin_?”

“Oh my God,” Eliot groaned.

He scrubbed his hand over his face and said, “I’ll see you in a second.”

Before she could argue, he hung up on her indignant face.

He turned to look over his shoulder, and Quentin was giving him an adorably confused, sleepy look. Eliot’s heart clenched in his chest. No one had a right to be that cute with bedhead. It was illegal. 

He needed to focus though because they had a situation at hand.

“So, guess Margo knows now,” he said.

Quentin stared at him for a few more seconds before snorting out a laugh and dropping his head back onto the pillow.

“That’s one way to do it,” he said.

Eliot patted his arm and said, “You can go back to sleep if you want, but unfortunately, I’ve gotta go deal with Hurricane Bambi.”

“Good luck,” Quentin mumbled, reaching for his phone and settling under the covers again like the unhelpful brat he was.

Eliot didn’t bother really getting dressed. Margo could have given more warning for her visit if she wanted him to look like a person. So, he grabbed his robe and slipped it on over his pajamas before stepping out into the hallway and down the stairs to buzz her in. Instead of waiting for her at the door, he just unlocked it and went to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. It was only a few minutes before she stepped inside the apartment.

He was leaning against the counter, waiting for his coffee to be done, as she approached him with her phone held up in her hand. As soon as she got close enough, she turned it around to show him the selfie from the night before of him kissing Quentin on the ferris wheel.

“Yeah, I had time to watch your Insta story while you were taking for-fucking-ever to let me in,” she said. “Wanna tell me what the hell is going on here?”

The coffee pot clicked behind him, and he turned around to grab a mug.

“Quentin and I are in a relationship,” he said plainly.

He peeked over his shoulder, and Margo had her hands on her hips and an eyebrow skeptically raised.

“Since when?” she asked.

“Well,” he said, really regretting that he and Q hadn’t come up with a solid backstory. Julia had assumed they’d been together for awhile, so maybe he’d just lean into that. He said, “For a little while, but we’ve been keeping it on the DL until we were ready to tell people.”

Margo smacked his arm, and he turned around.

“Ow,” he accused, “what was that for?”

“I’m not ‘people’, El!” she said. 

He held his hands up as he stepped around her to fill up his coffee mug.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “it’s just, things are kind of delicate, you know? We’re taking it slow.”

He was talking out of his ass and praying to whatever god or goddess might care that Margo couldn’t see through him.

“ _You’re_ taking it slow?” she asked.

“Yes, and I don’t appreciate your judgey tone,” he shot back.

She followed him out of the kitchen and all but draped herself over his shoulders as he sat down on the sofa. He really did miss her while she was off in Fillory being a badass High King. It was easy to forget just how much until she was here. She wrapped her arms around his neck and brought her head to rest against the side of his. 

“Okay,” she conceded. “I’m mad at you for not telling me, but if this means that you finally pulled your head out of your ass and talked to the boy, then I’m happy for you.” 

He turned his head towards her.

“Really?” he asked.

She shrugged and kissed him on the cheek.

She said, “What? I can be mad and happy for you at the same time. I’m multifaceted.”

God, Eliot loved her.

“You most certainly are,” he agreed.

Because she’s Margo and good at reading a situation, she dropped the topic after that. They had plenty else to discuss anyways, what with Fillory and its neverending list of problems. It wasn’t long before the rest of the house was up as well and Penny, Julia, and Quentin were milling about.

When Quentin settled next to him on the sofa, and he wrapped his arm around his shoulders to pull him into his side, Eliot was hyper aware of Margo’s eyes tracking every movement. So, he dropped a kiss to the top of Quentin’s head and pointedly did not look at her for her reaction.

“Good morning,” he said.

Quentin glanced at Margo quickly then up at him with a softer smile.

“Morning,” he replied, then he looked back at her and said, “Hey, Margo.”

Eliot could tell he was freaking out a bit, and he didn’t blame him with the way Margo was staring him down. So, he squeezed his shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture. Apparently he got the message, because he reached out his left hand and let it come to rest on the top of Eliot’s thigh as he drank his coffee with the other.

Margo looked at his hand then back up at him.

“Just so you know, we’re going to have the shovel talk,” she said.

Quentin choked on his coffee, and Eliot patted his back.

“Bambi, there’s no need to bring out the claws,” he warned.

She gave him a delightfully wicked grin.

“What? It’s my right and my duty as your best friend,” she shrugged innocently.

Quentin leaned forward to set his coffee down on the table and gave her a nervous laugh that was just way more endearing than it had the right to be.

“Don’t worry, I’d never forgive myself if I ever hurt Eliot,” he said.

There was a sincerity in his voice that made Eliot’s heart skip a beat. Their romantic relationship may have been pretend, but he had no doubt that Quentin meant what he said. They were friends. He wouldn’t have agreed to this if he thought it meant hurting Eliot in any way. 

The irony hadn’t escaped him that Quentin was lying, even if it wasn’t intentional. He was going to break Eliot’s heart when this was all over. 

That was a problem for another day though.

Margo continued to size him up while Eliot directed a warning look at her over the top of Quentin’s head. Finally, she said, “Okay, I believe you. Just know that if that ever changes, I know places in Fillory that no one will find your body.”

Quentin ducked his head and said, “Understood.”

“Good,” Margo said, leaning back into her chair, “now I can say that I’m really happy that you two stopped moping long enough to bang and then actually talk about it. If I had to endure one more mirror chat with Eliot going on and on about…”

“Margo,” Eliot interrupted. Both of them looked at him, and he froze. He hadn’t really gotten far enough to know what he was going to say, only enough to know that he had to shut her up _right now, preferably five seconds ago_ before she told Q all about his very real and very sad pining. 

He mentally scrambled as they watched him for what was probably seconds but felt like hours before he heard Julia’s laugh from the kitchen. _Yes_ , perfect. He cleared his throat.

“Julia mentioned that she wanted to talk to you about the desserts for the party.”

Margo raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at him. 

“Guess I better go and find her then,” she said, and he heard it as the question it was.

“Yeah,” he said, “guess so.”

Her eyes remained glued to him as she rose from the chair until she turned the corner into the kitchen. When he looked away, he found Quentin staring at him with that confused yet concentrated look on his face. His lips quirked up into a smile once Eliot met his eyes.

“What was that about?” he asked.

Eliot inhaled sharply and squeezed his shoulders once more before pulling his arm back and leaning into the cushions.

“Just trying to keep things on track for Julia,” he explained, waving his hand airily. “You’ve seen how she gets when she thinks any detail of this party might not be going according to plan.”

Eliot held his breath as Quentin studied him for a moment longer. Then Quentin nodded.

“Good point,” he said.

Eliot exhaled. God, lying to Margo, who knew too much, was definitely something he should have factored into this plan. Not that he’d thought it through to any degree. He was beginning to really see the faults in that approach.

Disaster momentarily averted, they settled into a comfortable silence as they drank their coffee and scrolled through their phones. 

Not two minutes later, the silence was broken when Quentin found a cat video on Instagram that made him cry-laugh, and he immediately forced Eliot to watch it about three more times. Despite himself, Eliot was quickly a giggling mess too. 

For awhile, it was just a nice, normal morning. One of those times when Eliot was reminded just how grateful he was for their friendship. Sure, he wanted more, but this right here was precious and worth saving. 

They’d fallen down a spiral of foster cat videos on Quentin’s phone for who knows how long when Julia entered the room in a hurry, a panicked look on her face. Quentin’s head shot up, already on high alert.

“What? What is it, Jules?” he asked.

She gestured to the empty corner of the apartment in front of them, and Eliot was still struggling to see what all the panic was about. He turned back to her and shrugged.

“We forgot about a Christmas tree!” she exclaimed. “It’s almost a week before Christmas, and we don’t have a tree!”

Eliot chuckled as Quentin sighed heavily next to him. Not every crisis was world ending, as they had been discovering over the last few months. Still, judging by the look on Julia’s face, this one was clearly about to be their problem if they didn’t do something and fast.

Margo trailed behind Julia and placed her hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t get your panties in a wad,” she said, and Julia glared at her. She continued, “I’ll take El and Q, and we’ll find one.”

Julia visibly settled just a little bit but still flicked her hair over her shoulder nervously as she turned to look at her.

“Where are you going to find a good tree this close to Christmas?” she asked.

Eliot piped up then, “We’re magicians, remember? Worst case scenario, we find a pine tree that would make Charlie Brown proud, and then we’ll magic it into a bushy evergreen.”

Julia turned to him with a relieved sigh and nodded.

“Okay, great. You just… do that,” she said.

She turned and disappeared again into the kitchen, and Quentin laughed. Margo looked at him then at Eliot with an amused grin herself.

She asked, “Alright boys, are you ready to save Christmas?” 

Their quest brought them to a Christmas tree farm in Queens. It was the sort of idyllic place usually reserved for Hallmark movies with holiday music playing over a speaker and kids darting this way and that, their laughter filling the air. And Eliot was on the edge of his last fucking nerve.

He didn't really _hate_ Christmas, per se. He just didn't particularly get the hype. It was just another holiday, and there was no need for the whole world to lose their collective minds over it. Add the fact that there were too many people and irritating music playing on a loop everywhere you go, and it wasn't something he enthusiastically subjected himself to.

As they walked through the rows, Quentin laughed next to him and bumped him with his shoulder.

“You look like someone just told you your dog died,” he said.

Eliot opened his mouth to answer, but Margo replied, “Eliot’s a grinch about Christmas. You’ll get used to it.”

He turned to look at her and argued, “I am not a grinch. You’re a grinch.”

“No, you are,” she said.

He stuck his tongue out at her, and she winked at him before disappearing down another row and leaving them alone. When he turned back to Q, he was giving him an amused smile.

“You definitely won that one,” he said.

Eliot rolled his eyes and said, “Shut up.”

They turned down a row in the opposite direction of where Margo ran off to and fell into a comfortable silence again as they ambled along. Quentin was genuinely inspecting each tree, doing some kind of serious looking examination of them, while Eliot mostly just watched him instead. He clearly really cared about finding the perfect Christmas tree, and while Eliot literally couldn’t have cared less about which dying tree they brought into their house, Quentin’s attention to every little detail was just about the most endearing thing he’d ever seen. 

Eliot had never really done the Christmas thing with any level of sincerity. Unsurprisingly, occasions that called for his entire extended Midwestern family to gather in the same room hadn’t been the highlight of his years growing up. There was more bickering and drinking than Christmas spirit to be found on his grandparents’ farm. Then as an adult, he’d just never really gotten around to it. There were better things to do with his time and money than buy into the commercial facade of the holiday. Watching Q’s unfiltered excitement for the tradition though, he felt a sort of nostalgic yearning deep in his chest for something he’d never had. 

He swallowed down the feeling and stepped up to Quentin’s side as he circled the tree he’d been looking at for quite some time now. Quentin turned to look at him with a small smile of acknowledgement.

“What do you think of this one?” he asked.

Eliot looked at the tree from top to bottom. It wasn’t really anything special. It was a pine tree of average height, just like every other tree they’d looked at so far. When he looked back at Quentin, though, it was written all over his hopeful eyes and the little curve in the corner of his lips that this one was it. So, Eliot gave him a confident smile.

“I think it’s the one,” he said.

Quentin grinned at him and asked, “Really?”

It was obvious that he really cared what Eliot thought, though Eliot would have said yes to anything in that moment, and it made his heart do a complicated little flip in his chest.

“Definitely,” he said.

Quentin stepped back into the walkway with him as Margo rounded the corner and caught up with them.

“Got one?” she asked.

Eliot nodded at her.

“Yep, now let’s go find an employee so we can get out of here,” he said. 

Margo narrowed her eyes and shook her head at him. He sighed and looked between her and Quentin as she pulled out her phone.

She said, “You two stand in front of the tree, so I can take a cute picture.”

Eliot whined, “Is that really necessary?”

She glared at him.

“This is your first Christmas together, and I can’t believe I’m the one explaining this!” she said. She turned to Quentin and continued, “I bet Q wants to document it, don’t you?”

Quentin cleared his throat and cut his eyes at him. He shrugged his shoulders, and Eliot sighed. He grabbed Q’s arm and pulled him over to stand in front of the tree with him. 

“Fine,” he said, though there wasn’t really any heat behind it. He had a reputation to uphold though, so a little reluctance was required. 

Quentin didn’t seem offended by it as he placed his arm around Eliot’s waist and tucked into his side. It was just a picture to keep Margo convinced they were a real couple. That’s all. So, Eliot placed his arm around Quentin’s shoulders and they gave her their cheeriest smiles. She took a couple of photos before frowning at the screen then up at them and lowering the camera.

“Oh come on, you two,” she said, “I’ve seen more chemistry in a budget meeting between Rafe and that damn sloth. There’s no need to be modest in front of me. I’ve seen both of your dicks, remember?”

Eliot laughed as Quentin blushed and glared at her. She raised an eyebrow at him, and Eliot said, “Alright Q, act like you like me so that we can go home.”

Quentin shuffled closer uncertainly, like he had no idea what he was doing, and Eliot took pity on him. He brought both of his arms up to pull Quentin to him in a hug and sighed as he nestled up against his chest. Both of Quentin’s arms wrapped around him, and he twisted around to face Margo. It was really unfair how well he fit against Eliot’s body as if he was made to be there. 

Eliot remembered thinking that in Fillory too. They’d spent so many nights at the mosaic wrapped up just like this, and Eliot had marveled, even aloud once or twice, at how seamlessly they worked when they committed themselves to it. He couldn’t have dreamed up someone better for him if he’d tried. Eliot forgot for a moment where they were as he tightened his arms around him. 

Quentin tilted his head up to give Eliot a questioning look as if to ask if this was okay, and Eliot, unable to speak, just nodded at him.

“That’s much better,” Margo said.

Her voice snapped Eliot back to reality, and he looked back to the camera.

“Hurry up and take it then because I’m freezing,” he directed to her.

She gave him a little knowing smirk and took a few more photos before lowering her phone. Eliot patted Quentin on the back as they separated and said, “Okay, I’m going to find someone to get this down for us.”

It took him a few minutes of dodging children and adults alike to find an employee who wasn’t already busy. When he finally returned, he found Quentin and Margo speaking in hushed tones. Margo looked like she was having the time of her life, and Quentin was giving her an indignant little glare. When they spotted him, Margo smiled and stepped back to loop her arm through Eliot’s.

“Is everything okay?” he asked her.

She nodded and said, “Everything’s perfect. Now, let’s get this tree home so we can drink wine and criticize while Q and Julia decorate it.”

Quentin rolled his eyes but smiled at them nonetheless.

Margo’s description of the tree decorating affair was pretty much exactly how it unfolded. Julia had apparently busied herself with ordering lights and ornaments with Amazon’s one hour shipping and was ready and waiting for them when they arrived with the tree in tow. 

Eliot leaned against a windowsill and watched as the two of them wrangled the tree into the corner and started untangling lights. Margo appeared at his side with a glass held out for him, and he took it with a hum of gratitude. She settled against the window, their shoulders touching, as she took a sip from her own glass. Eliot was busy watching Quentin’s little frustrated frown as he somehow got the string of lights more tangled than they had been in the first place, so he missed Margo’s comment the first time she said it. 

He turned his head to her and asked, “Hmm?”

Without tearing her eyes away from the tree in front of them, she said, “I _said_ , Quentin’s a really bad liar.”

Eliot tightened his grip on the stem of his wine glass and asked, “What do you mean?”

She turned to him with a knowing look.

“You didn’t really talk to him,” she accused.

He cleared his throat and took a sip.

He said, “That’s ridiculous, of course I did.”

“No, you didn’t,” she carried on, “because both of you are still pining after each other so much that it’s making me want to throw up.”

He glared at her.

“That’s not what’s happening,” he said.

“Alright, enlighten me. What is happening then?” she asked.

He sighed. Well, he’d tried to convince her at least.

“Julia mistakenly thought we were together. So, we decided to just tell everyone that we are for the holiday season to get her off his back, and then we’ll ‘break up’ and go back to normal as soon as the party is over,” he explained.

Margo looked like she was barely containing her laughter, and he scoffed at her not unlike a petulant child.

He said, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

She did laugh then and shook her head before emptying her wine glass.

“Both of you are idiots,” she said.

She turned and walked away to fill up her glass again before he could respond. 

She shot over her shoulder, “And don’t try to lie to me again. You’re not very good at it either.”

He leaned back against the windowsill with a sigh and brought his glass up to his lips. It’s not like he could argue with her on that one.


	4. Chapter 4

When Quentin woke up, he was unreasonably warm for a December morning. Despite being a bunch of magicians who weren’t paying the utility bills, Julia insisted on keeping the apartment at criminally low temperatures, and Eliot took her side more often than not. As the only resident who constantly froze, he was used to just throwing on an extra sweater and dealing with it. So, waking up warm was not a normal occurrence as of late.

He was also facing the window, which was very bright with the early rays of sunlight streaming in, so he started to roll over and discovered the second non-normal occurrence. There was a person in his bed. A person with their arms wrapped around him like he was a teddy bear or something. A person who was now making grumpy sleep noises and nuzzling their face into the back of his neck. 

A person named Eliot.

For a good few seconds, he nearly full-on panicked. Eliot was spooning him, which was definitely not the worst way he’d ever woken up, but also what the _fuck_? He took a moment to assess that they were both definitely wearing clothes, which was a good sign, and that they were in fact in his bedroom. The arms around him didn’t loosen as Eliot scooted closer and sighed into the top of his head.

“Stop overthinking and go back to sleep,” he murmured. “It’s too early.”

That’s when he remembered exactly how they’d ended up in this position. He was honestly mostly surprised it had taken them that long to get there. They’d been sharing a bed for several days now to keep up the facade of their relationship, and true to Eliot’s word, he’d kept his hands to himself. Quentin hadn’t exactly, like, wanted that as a prerequisite, but it kept things clearly defined which was important. The problem was that Eliot was naturally a cuddler. Well, really they both were. 

Last night, despite his joking tone when Eliot had floated the idea of a sleepover, they actually had stayed up quite late talking. Eliot told him about Margo figuring out they were faking it, which he wasn’t all that surprised by. Margo was too perceptive for her own good sometimes and not just because of the fairy eye.

It turned out that they both had a lot on their minds once they got started though. Like how Margo was anxious for Eliot to get back to Fillory and had been growing pushier about it as his recovery progressed. How he wasn’t sure what was really there for him anymore; if he even wanted to go back. If Quentin should still want to finish his degree. What any of them were going to do with their lives going forward. They’d pretty much reached a non-conclusion on all fronts, but it was emotionally draining enough that Quentin had been on edge by the time they’d fallen quiet. 

It wasn’t that talking made the anxiety worse, actually quite the opposite. For weeks, he hadn’t felt like he could say any of what had been weighing on his mind to Julia, with everything else she had to worry about. Margo was mostly gone and not exactly the person he chose for his heart to hearts. His therapist helped with managing the symptoms of it all, but there was only so far she could go in understanding what he’d been through. Eliot though? No one could come closer to understanding him than Eliot Waugh. It was a side effect of living with someone for fifty years. Besides, Eliot had needed his understanding too. It wasn’t like all the times when Quentin felt like he was burdening someone with his problems. He felt like they were equally helping each other, somehow.

Still, the anxiety didn’t exactly go away. He suspected Eliot felt much the same because they’d only been quiet for a few minutes around 3am when he heard Eliot tossing and turning behind him. He ignored it at first, trying to pretend that he was already asleep. After a little while though, he heard Eliot roll onto his back and sigh. So, he turned over to face him and found him staring up at the ceiling. Eliot glanced at him and raised his eyebrows.

“Did I wake you up?” he whispered.

Quentin shook his head and whispered back, “I can’t sleep either.”

They looked at each other for a moment before Eliot shifted under the covers, and Quentin jumped when he felt Eliot’s foot brush his calf. Wide-eyed, he looked up at Eliot, who tilted his head at him in question.

It had been their thing in the early days of the mosaic timeline. They weren’t together and they weren’t talking about it, but sometimes they needed comfort and no one else was around. Eliot was a tactile person, and Quentin found he slept better in Eliot’s arms. So, they’d developed an unspoken method of asking for it when one or both of them needed it. Just a quick touch that could go unacknowledged if necessary but rarely did.

Without much thought, he nodded his head and turned over to face the wall. Eliot responded by scooting closer and wrapping himself around Quentin in a snug big spoon position. He pushed one leg between Quentin’s and wrapped his arm securely around his waist to pull him close, which left them pressed together from head to toe. It didn’t mean anything more than a mutual gesture of comfort, but it felt nice. Safe. Quentin exhaled and pressed back into the solid warmth of Eliot’s body. He’d fallen asleep pretty quickly after that. 

So yeah, he did need to stop overthinking it. A quick glance at the clock on his nightstand revealed it was barely 7am. So, he listened to Eliot and drifted off again in the comfort of his arms.

When he woke up a second time a few hours later, he was alone in his bedroom. Not alone in the house though because he could hear Eliot and Julia talking downstairs. It had been just the three of them in the apartment for the last couple of days with the rest of the gang off handling their own respective quests before they would all reunite on Christmas Day. Not that he didn’t enjoy the rest of their friends being around too, but he could admit it had been kind of nice.

Because the apartment was now freezing again without Eliot’s body heat nearby, he threw on a sweatshirt and made his way downstairs.

“There’s sleeping beauty!” Eliot exclaimed as he entered the room.

Julia laughed, and he flipped them both off.

“Maybe I wouldn’t have to go into hibernation if you two didn’t keep it so cold in here,” he complained.

He set about pouring himself a bowl of whatever cereal they had in the cabinet. He really should pay more attention when Julia does their grocery orders.

“There’s coffee in the pot,” Eliot said.

Quentin answered, “Thanks.”

He poured himself a cup and carried his mug and his cereal to the living room where they were both seated. No less than two seconds after he sat down, Eliot scooted closer and wrapped his arms around him, draping himself over him obnoxiously and making him have to juggle his coffee so that he didn’t immediately spill it.

“ _Eliot_ ,” he protested.

Eliot nuzzled the side of his head and said, “Come here and let daddy warm you up if you’re gonna complain about our temperature preferences.”

He groaned, “Oh my god, never say that again.” 

Eliot only laughed as he wiggled out of his embrace and sat his coffee down on the table. He turned to him with a half-hearted glare and only received a smug smile in return.

“You know, I think I liked not knowing you guys were together better,” Julia said.

Eliot leaned back into his own seat again and said, “We’re adorable, and you know it.”

They had really fallen into a comfortable and flirty closeness in front of their friends over the two weeks, and it was honestly a little alarming to Quentin. Not that it was bothering him, but mostly because it was really _too_ easy.

Had they always been like this before things got messy and complicated? It was so long ago he could barely remember. Was this dynamic residual from the lifetime they’d spent together? Maybe. Or was it something new altogether? Possibly. He couldn’t separate any of it in his head, and it was tangling into a very confusing mess, only further complicated by how much he _liked_ it. And how much everyone else seemed to be buying it, barring Margo, of course.

He and Julia had had another conversation about Eliot just the day before. Frankly he thought she was a little too invested in his dating life, but she was hearing none of it. They’d been tracking down a rent item together at the black market, as you do, when she’d said, “I think Eliot is really good for you, you know.”

He hadn’t known how to respond. Apparently she didn’t need him to though because she continued, with a laugh, “Margo and I were so close to just locking you guys in a room until you talked it out. It was seriously painful to watch you two dance around each other after we got him back.”

For the second time so far, he’d really regretted lying to Jules. Mostly because she was just so damn sincere about her happiness for him. He couldn’t even stomach the thought of telling her the truth. That while he may have been dancing around Eliot, the feelings weren’t mutual. She’d probably hex one or both of them at this point if she found out what had really happened when Quentin had asked Eliot to be with him, how far it was from the fairytale ending she was imagining. 

Quentin swallowed down the confession that threatened to crawl up his throat and spill out of his mouth. It wouldn’t do him any favors now. 

He couldn’t meet her eyes when he said, “Uh, yeah, Eliot’s really great.”

The trend of People Knowing Too Much was one destined to continue, as he would soon find out. 

It was two days before the Christmas party, and he and Eliot were going out that afternoon to do a last minute grocery store run before they did their part of the cooking. They’d been warned that they were not allowed in the kitchen on the day of the party, so they were making use of the fact that they were magicians and preparing their food in advance with the spells Josh had given them to preserve it. 

It had been a couple of days since either of them had left the house, so they’d also decided to get some fresh air in the process. They had a fairly routine schedule of going out for walks at least a few times a week. It had started when Quentin’s therapist had insisted he go outside more often, but that wasn’t the only reason for it. 

Eliot was recovering from the damage the monster had inflicted on his body, but he still woke up some mornings unable to make it down the stairs without taking a break halfway. He hid it well, if you didn’t know him as well as Quentin did. Quentin had seen him at seventy years old when he’d finally caved and started using the cane they’d bought at the market though. So he knew how to tell when Eliot was in pain and trying to hide it. 

Simply put, the walks were a mutually beneficial activity. 

Today, they’d found themselves in the park two blocks away from their apartment. It was further than they sometimes ventured, but they were already going to the store so it was on the way. It was just a small park, the kind of greenery you find tucked away in city centers meant to break up all the concrete. It was a nice change of scenery though as they turned onto the narrow path and disappeared through the trees at the entrance. 

Eliot was in a cheerful mood. Quentin might have sulked about doing the grocery shopping and cooking if left to his own devices, but his positivity was contagious and had Quentin feeling lighter as they walked along. 

They passed a couple walking a corgi, and seconds later, Eliot blurted out, “Do you think the Baba Yaga allows pets?”

Quentin turned to him and raised his eyebrows.

“Are you seriously suggesting that any of us could keep a dog alive?” he asked.

Eliot shrugged, nonplussed by his skepticism.

“It doesn’t have to be a dog,” he said. “We could get a cat.” 

And there was just something about the suggestion that made Quentin feel like his chest was in knots. Maybe it was the permanency of it. The idea that if they got a pet, it would be something they were committing to. 

It implied that Eliot wasn’t planning on running off to Fillory and staying gone again. It implied that things weren’t about to change for them at the drop of a hat, as they constantly had over the last several years. That they could make long term plans.

Quentin was surprised to find the idea of that kind of stability both completely foreign and unbelievably appealing. 

“We can talk to Jules about it,” he said simply, as if he weren’t having an internal existential crisis.

“Okay,” Eliot agreed. 

They walked along in comfortable silence again for awhile longer before Eliot’s pace started to slow. Quentin noticed it but did not point it out. Eliot would never admit when his joints were acting up while they were out, and asking if he needed to take a break would only get him a stubborn refusal for his troubles. 

So, Quentin spotted a bench up ahead and slowed to match Eliot’s pace until they were close enough for him to suggest, “Hey, why don’t we sit for a little while? We don’t have to cook tonight, so it’s not like we have to hurry back.”

On a colder day, he might have been met with resistance, but it was an unseasonably warm afternoon in the city. So, Eliot agreed and settled next to him on the park bench once they reached it. He stretched out his left leg in front of them, which must have been the one that was giving him trouble. That combined with the way he dropped his hands to his sides, tipped his head back, and closed his eyes made him look like a cat stretched out in the sun. Quentin smiled to himself as he sneakily opened up his camera app and snapped a photo. 

Eliot didn’t notice as he quickly typed out “eliot waugh or cat? scientists can’t tell” and posted the photo on his Instagram. 

He and Julia had been in a bit of a photo prank war lately, uploading the funniest pictures of each other that they could take at unexpected times, with no end in sight. Eliot had evaded the antics for the most part, but he too sometimes got caught in the crosshairs. That was really all Quentin had been thinking of when he’d uploaded it. However, less than two minutes later, his phone buzzed with a new text.

**Alice Quinn**  
_I’m happy for you and Eliot. Just wanted you to know that._

He frowned at the notification. He hadn’t talked to Alice since this whole thing started, and he really doubted that Eliot had either. So, how did she know? 

It was going to come up anyway if they were going to be acting like a couple at the party, so he decided it was as good a time as any to rip off that particular bandaid and just go with her assumption. He opened up their text thread and replied.

_thank you, that means a lot. btw, who told you? julia?_

She typed for a minute. Then stopped. Then started again. Then stopped.

Finally, her reply appeared.

_No one told me. I’ve assumed for awhile, but I didn’t want to say anything in case I was wrong. I figured it was officially public knowledge after those pictures Eliot shared last week._

If Quentin was confused before, he was bewildered now. She’d assumed for awhile. Just like Julia had assumed for awhile. Why were absolutely none of their friends surprised by this? Was he really that obvious with his feelings? 

He typed out a quick reply.

_yeah, i guess it is. we’ll see you and kady at the party, right?_

Next to him, Eliot was scrolling through his phone when he suddenly elbowed Quentin’s arm. Quentin jumped and turned to look at him. He was holding up his phone with the photo Quentin had posted and a faux unimpressed look on his face.

“Is this a war you really want to start, Coldwater?” he asked.

Quentin smiled despite himself and shrugged, giving him an unrepentant expression.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied.

Eliot raised an eyebrow at him and said, “Alright, if that’s how you wanna play it.”

He was grinning to himself though as he tucked his phone back into his pocket and stretched, very much like a cat, before standing up again. He offered a hand to Quentin and pulled him up as well.

“We should probably get going,” he said. 

Quentin said, “Yeah, probably.”

They didn’t immediately move though. Eliot was just looking at him, an unreadable expression on his face. Quentin didn’t look away either, despite the weird tension the moment had suddenly taken on. Their hands were still clasped between them, and they stood there, for just a few seconds too long, before his phone buzzed.

He quickly dropped Eliot’s hand and looked down to see a thumbs up reply from Alice. 

He locked and pocketed his phone, shoving both of his hands inside his jacket as well, and turned back to Eliot.

He cleared his throat and said, “Let’s go.”

The following day was Christmas Eve, and if Quentin woke up feeling just the slightest bit excited about it, well, he’d always been a kid at heart. His family had been… complicated, growing up. With his parents’ divorce and his depression and his mom’s new wife, not a lot was stable for him. For Christmas though, his dad had always made sure they had a good time. 

Typically, he and his dad would go to his grandparents’ house upstate for Christmas Eve. It was a drive, but he only saw them a few times a year, so it was still a treat. Then on Christmas Day, just the two of them would celebrate with a quiet day at home. The Coldwater men weren’t the partying type. He’d definitely gotten his more reserved, introverted nature from his dad. That was why it was such a fond memory though. 

The traditions had fallen away since Brakebills entered the picture which was okay, because life just happened that way. You grew up and got busy and things changed. This year was the first though since his dad had passed away. 

His therapist had been talking to him a lot about how to prepare for it. She impressed upon him the importance of making new plans, new traditions. Staying busy. She said he needed to have something to look forward to in order to keep the depression spiral at bay. She was right, of course, and that was most of the reason why he was humoring Julia’s hellbent declaration that they were going to have Christmas and they were going to like it. 

Thankfully, it was mostly working.

He found himself in reasonably high spirits as he and Eliot took over the kitchen to begin their part of the cooking, a Pandora Christmas station playing over the bluetooth speaker. Julia had only asked for “a couple of side dishes,” but Eliot had obviously heard “prepare the first four courses of a five course meal.” They’d well and truly taken over every surface of the kitchen with all the ingredients and cookware scattered about, and Eliot was in his element. 

Quentin wasn’t even really sure why he was there at all, because Eliot clearly did not need his help. He was more than happy to be an appreciative audience and pass things to Eliot when asked though, so that was the role he’d taken up. 

“Can you hand me that big green mixing bowl?”

Quentin pushed himself off the kitchen island he’d been leaning on and opened the cabinet across from him. The bowl was on the top shelf, which he could just barely reach on tiptoes, but he managed it and passed it to Eliot’s waiting hand.

“Thanks,” Eliot said, not looking up from the vegetables he was chopping.

Since he was already there, and the counter in front of him was partially clear, he hopped up on it to sit and watch. Watching Eliot cook was one of his favorite past times. Like everything Eliot did, it held a careful, practiced air of sophistication. He treated it like an art. It wasn’t fake or pretentious though like it would be for most people. You could just tell that he was really enjoying himself. It was a part of himself that he had lovingly crafted, and he took pride in it. That was what made it so enjoyable for Quentin to watch. 

“Here, stir this but not too fast.”

He reached out and took the bowl Eliot was holding out for him. Stirring was something he could handle.

“Q, I said not too fast,” Eliot chastised.

Well, stirring like a _normal person_ was something he could handle.

He shot Eliot an unimpressed glare, which got him an eyeroll and a tsk in response. Eliot left his station to stand in front of him and take the spoon from his hand. He watched as Eliot stirred the mix carefully and deliberately against the side of the bowl.

“Like this,” he instructed.

Quentin took the bowl back from him and actually did try his best to copy what Eliot had done. It must have been close enough because when he looked up, Eliot was smiling at him. He reached up and patted Quentin’s cheek twice, saying, “There you go.”

Quentin brushed him off and shook his head, a smile playing on his own lips. It said a lot about just how far gone he was over the man that he found it endearing.

They’d also been working their way through a bottle of wine, which might have also had something to do with it. And the more wine he drank, the more Eliot started to sing along to whatever song was playing from his phone.

Learning that Eliot could sing was one of his favorite things that had happened during their time in Fillory. Right now, he was crooning along to Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Quentin took a sip from his glass and leaned back against the counter to lazily watch him taste the soup he was working on then reach for the thyme to sprinkle a bit more in. 

“You know, stirring usually involves moving your hand,” Eliot said, not looking up.

Quentin snorted and pick up the spoon again.

Eliot didn’t say anything else, but he did smile down at his pot. Quentin stirred, Eliot sang, and they carried on like that until Eliot reached out for the bowl he’d passed to Quentin, who willingly gave it over. In return, Eliot stopped to fill up his wine glass again before going back to the oven.

Quentin took a sip and then immediately grimaced as the song changed. To ‘Santa Baby’. Eliot didn’t miss a beat though and started to sing along.

“ _Santa baby, just slip a sable under the tree for me, been an awful good girl, Santa baby…_ ”

Maybe it was the wine, but Quentin just immediately burst out laughing. Eliot looked up, a delighted grin on his face, and only continued to sing more dramatically.

“ _Santa baby, a ‘54 convertible too, light blue…_ ”

Quentin groaned, “Oh my god, El, please shut up.”

He reached for Eliot’s phone on the counter between them to skip the song, but Eliot grabbed it before he could and began using it as a microphone as he sauntered over towards him.

“ _Think of all the fun I’ve missed, think of all the fellas that I haven’t kissed…_ ”

He looked Quentin up and down in a very salacious manner, smiling and drawing out the syllables in a deliberate way as he sang, “ _Next year I could be just as good, if you’ll check off my Christmas list._ ”

And okay, that might have made Quentin temporarily forget what he had been talking about just moments before. He swallowed roughly and cleared his throat. Eliot grinned at him and winked before taking a sip from his own wine glass and going back to cooking.

“Keep complaining and I’ll turn on the cursed Bublé version,” Eliot threatened, once his back was to him again.

Quentin, only halfway back to composed, said, “Yeah, hard pass.”

“Mmhmm, that’s what I thought,” Eliot hummed. 

Later, after the enchantments had been set and the food was all ready for the party the next day, Quentin was tucked away under Eliot’s silk sheets while the other man was finishing up his night time routine down the hall. He scrolled through his phone, making sure his alarms were set for the next day, before plugging it in and leaving it on the bedside table. 

When Eliot came back in the room, he was wearing only a silk robe and dark green pajama pants, which were really more like joggers with the way they tapered down at his calves. Quentin couldn’t look away as he slipped off his robe and climbed into bed beside him. He’d blame it on the fact that he was still tipsy, but he thought he could really get used to this. To sleeping next to a shirtless Eliot Waugh every night.

Eliot turned over on his side to look at him. Neither of them said anything, but Quentin was thinking a lot of things. Like how pretty Eliot’s eyes were. How he had just the faintest five o’clock shadow along his jaw. How kissable his lips looked as one side turned up in a half smile. The dark hair that trailed down his chest. Okay, maybe he was still really tipsy. 

Less pleasantly, he was also thinking about how this was the last night they were going to be masquerading as a couple. After this, after the party tomorrow, they wouldn’t have a reason to keep up the act. Quentin would go back to sleeping in his cold room, alone. Back to measuring the space between them, counting the seconds he let his glances linger, filtering every shared word and smile to make sure he wasn’t showing too much of his hand. That was what he’d agreed to though, wasn’t it? Just a temporary arrangement then back to reality. 

The thought sent a pang through his chest, clutching at his heart in a stranglehold.

He looked back up at Eliot’s eyes and made a decision in that moment.

Fuck all of that.

He said, “Hey, um.”

He couldn’t get the words to leave his mouth, but he knew what he wanted to do. So, Eliot raised a curious eyebrow at him, and he leaned in and kissed him.

It was just a tentative press of lips at first. Eliot barely reacted and started kissing him back before he pulled away. He looked up at him, trying to read what he was thinking. To see if he’d just fucked everything up. 

Eliot gave him a small little surprised smile, closed his eyes, and leaned back in to capture his lips.

It wasn’t tentative anymore as one kiss turned to two then three then Quentin lost count. 

A careful distance turned into wandering hands and entwined legs. 

Quentin’s shirt landed on the floor somewhere to the side of the room.

Eliot crawled on top of him, straddling his hips as he deepened their kiss.

Quentin’s hands in Eliot’s hair.

Eliot’s lips on Quentin’s neck.

Quentin’s fingers slipping under the waistband of Eliot’s pants. 

Eliot moaning against his skin.

Then, he stopped.

He pulled his hands away and leaned his head back against the pillow as he tried to catch his breath. Eliot noticed immediately and stopped as well, sitting back on his thighs to give him a concerned look.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asked.

Quentin closed his eyes and shook his head. He needed to be the smart one here, and in order to do that, he had to pull himself together right the fuck now. They were drunk, or at the very least still tipsy. This wasn’t what they had agreed to, and it wasn’t what Eliot really wanted. Taking advantage of him when he wasn’t able to consent with a clear head was wrong. He’d made this mistake before, and he wasn’t going to make it again. They could talk about this tomorrow and figure out what it meant then, but for tonight, it had to stop.

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, “but El, this is a mistake.”

Eliot’s face went through several complicated expressions before all of the emotion slipped off of it entirely. He pressed his lips into a hard line and said, “Okay.”

He swung his leg off of Quentin and retreated to his side of the bed, turning his back to him as he went to plug in his phone.

Quentin sighed.

“I just mean that we’re drunk, and this isn’t what we agreed to,” he said.

Eliot still didn’t look at him as he said, “No, you’re right. We said there’s no need to act like a couple if no one’s watching, and we should stick to the rules. It was a mistake.”

Quentin couldn’t help but feel like everything he was saying was coming out wrong. Frustrated, he said, “That’s not what I meant. El…”

Eliot flicked off the lights and turned on his side to face away from him, sending a clear message that he was done talking. Quentin stared at his back and chewed on his lip.

In a small voice, he asked, “Are, are we okay?”

Eliot was quiet for a few seconds. 

Then he sighed and said, “We’re fine, Q. Go to sleep.”

They were absolutely not fine.


	5. Chapter 5

It was Christmas Day, and Eliot Waugh was definitely not sulking. 

All of their friends had arrived, and they were having a _great fucking time_. Margo and Josh had shown up with a truly delectable selection of pastries and cookies. At least half of them probably wouldn’t even send you on a psychedelic trip.

Then Kady and Alice had shown up, bearing three bottles of the exact brand of wine Eliot had recommended when Alice panic-texted him at the last minute from the liquor store. He gave her a quick wink as she set it out on the table, and she shot him a grateful smile. That one could stay their little secret.

Julia and Penny had taken over the kitchen for the entire morning to finish up the ham and the turkey. Unsurprisingly, none of them had managed to agree on one or the other, so Penny had said fuck it and gotten both. Whatever, they were magicians. They could eat the leftovers for weeks to come.

Then there was Quentin, whom Eliot had seen very little of since he left him asleep in his bed that morning. That was… probably for the best. 

Julia, after telling them all to stop hovering, had shooed them out of the kitchen and into the living room while she and Penny finished up the cooking. So, Eliot grabbed a bottle of wine and filled up his glass on his way out. He knew he should join the group on the sofa and socialize a bit. It had been awhile since he’d seen many of them. However, he found himself out on the balcony instead, leaning against the railing as he sipped his wine. He’d have liked a cigarette too, but he’d quit doing that over the last few months. Part of his whole recovery thing. He and Quentin had quit together. 

Oh well, he still had the wine.

After barely a minute or two, he heard the door crack open behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and gave a quick nod when he saw that it was Margo.

She gave him a half smile as she closed the door behind her and came to stand at his side, their arms brushing as she leaned next to him.

“You wanna tell me why you’re out here sulking on Christmas?” she asked, never one to beat around the bush.

He took a sip and gave her a halfhearted glare.

“I’m not sulking,” he said. “I’m contemplating.”

She laughed, not unkindly, and turned to face him. He glanced at her quickly then back out into the streets below. Her knowing eyes didn’t stop burning holes into the side of his face though.

She asked, “Does whatever you’re ‘contemplating’ have anything to do with why Q is hiding in his bedroom?”

Eliot shrugged and did not look her way. He just had to get through today without everything blowing up in his face, and he wasn’t going to do that if he let Margo lay all of his shit bare this early on.

Staring down into his wine glass, he asked, “Can we not, right now?”

She was quiet for a few moments, so he hazarded a glance at her. She was giving him a thoughtful look. He could tell she had more to say, but she was letting it go.

“Okay,” she said slowly, “but we’re talking about this later.”

He sighed and nodded his head as he looked away again. 

She lingered for just a few minutes longer before squeezing his arm and stepping back inside. There was a whole room full of people there, after all, and the point of the day was to see them. Eliot didn’t go back inside though. He stayed on the balcony until he’d finished his wine and then a little while longer, until Alice opened the door to tell him that dinner was ready. 

The whole gang was gathered in the kitchen when he trailed in behind them. He looked around until he spotted Quentin on the other side of the room, leaning against the bar with his arms crossed over his chest. He was glaring at the floor like it had offended him or something, and Eliot almost found it funny. Almost.

Then Quentin looked up and caught his eye, and he quickly looked away. Honestly, he was starting to think that their best chance of making through the day might be to just avoid each other altogether. Quentin wasn’t thinking that though apparently, because he pushed off the bar and starting walking Eliot’s way.

Every instinct in his body was telling him to run, but he forced his feet to stay rooted to the floor. _Just make it through the day_ , he thought, like a mantra. Quentin stopped next to him, a few inches away, but close enough that Eliot could see him out of the corner of his eye. He kept his gaze forward.

He bumped Eliot’s arm with his shoulder, and Eliot involuntarily flinched.

Quentin sighed as he took a step away from him.

Quietly, he said, “Look, what happened last night…”

“There’s nothing to talk about. It was a mistake,” Eliot snapped.

Quentin exhaled sharply and rubbed his eyes with one hand. He said, “Fine, but we’re going to have to stow our shit for a few hours unless you want to explain to all of our friends why you won’t even look at me.”

Eliot would be lying if he said the idea hadn’t crossed his mind. Well, not to tell them the truth exactly. Just to spread a fake little break up story that would leave no one questioning why they wouldn’t be around each other. He shot a side glance at Q, who was giving him an incredulous look.

“Really?” he asked, tone as sarcastic as Eliot had ever heard it. “You’re actually considering that, aren’t you?”

Eliot rolled his eyes and looked forward again.

“Of course not, don’t be stupid,” he said. “We’re adults. We can stick to the plan and make it through one dinner.”

There was a silence and then Quentin said, “Okay, fine.”

“Fine,” Eliot replied.

After everyone had piled up their plates, they gathered in the dining room, which had been magicked to hold a table large enough for the whole group. He and Quentin were last in the room, thanks to their little argument. Their friends had left two open seats for them though, next to each other of course. Because they were one of the four ‘couples’ in the room. 

Quentin gave him a tight smile as they sat down, and Eliot gingerly placed his arm on the back of his chair. 

Margo was seated directly across from him, and Eliot met her curious gaze once before responding with a warning glare and looking away. Luckily, whatever her response might have been was cut off by the sound of someone clinking their spoon against a wine glass. The table turned to look as Julia stood.

“Hi, um, I know toasts are cheesy, but just bear with me for a second,” she said.

Everyone laughed, and she broke into a dimpled smile.

She said, “I just wanted to thank you all for being here. I know it wasn’t easy to coordinate, but I really appreciate everyone making it work. It’s just…” She looked around the room, eyes landing on Quentin with a smile before continuing. “We’ve had a rough couple of years, all of us. But we made it. So, even if it’s just for one day, I’m glad we could get together and celebrate that. You all are the closest thing I have to family, and I wouldn’t want to spend Christmas anywhere else.” 

She raised her glass, and everyone else did too. 

“To family,” she said.

Everyone, even Penny, echoed, “To family!”

Eliot clinked his glass against everyone’s he could reach before downing a generous sip of his wine.

“We’re certainly fucked up enough to be one,” he muttered.

Then he heard Quentin snort out a laugh next to him, and he looked over to see him smiling. Eliot hesitated but smiled back.

The good thing about dinners is that, for awhile at least, everyone shuts up because they are eating. During that brief respite, Eliot was almost able to relax. 

“This bread is really good. Who made it?” Alice asked, polite as ever. Well, polite as she had been the last few months. 

Julia answered, “Oh, Eliot and Q did.”

Alice turned to them, “What did you put in this?”

“Rosemary,” Eliot replied.

Alice nodded and smiled at them both. Kady, however, was looking between them curiously as she chewed. It was less of a friendly stare and more like she was doing long division in her head. She swallowed and sat her fork down.

“What’s up with you two anyway?” she gestured between them. “When did _this_ happen?”

Margo’s sharp gaze landed on Eliot, and he opened his mouth, then closed it.

“I--” he said.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Quentin interrupted him.

He grabbed Eliot’s hand on the table and gave it a tight squeeze. _Play along_ , it said. Eliot cleared his throat.

Before he could say anything, Julia said, “It really has. You should have seen them these last few months.”

Margo sat her glass down loudly and leaned forward on the table. She said, “Forget these two. If you want some real tea, you should hear about Fen and that palace guard I caught her with last week.”

Eliot met her eyes and tried to convey every ounce of gratitude he felt into it. She opened her mouth, but was interrupted by Penny.

“No, I wanna go back to Coldwater and Waugh,” he said. “I didn’t even know Quentin liked dick.”

Quentin dropped Eliot’s hand and turned in his chair to face Penny.

“Fuck you, 23, I’m bisexual,” he said.

Penny raised his hands and sat back in his chair as Julia said, “Guys--”

“No,” Quentin interrupted, “if you wanna talk about me and Eliot, then let’s talk.”

Eliot slinked down into his chair and picked up his wine glass. Margo gave him a worried look as he tipped his head back and brought it to his lips.

“Q,” she warned.

He kept going, “Eliot and I spent fifty years together during the key quest.” The room fell silent. “We had a son named Teddy Coldwater-Waugh. We had grandchildren! And yeah, it was a little complicated and not the most ideal scenario to be stuck in past Fillory with no way out, but we were happy.” He paused. “Happy enough that an ancient puzzle deemed it 'the beauty of all life' and gave us the key we needed to save magic.”

Everyone seemed to be struck dumb by his impassioned rant. Not even Margo knew that much of the story, and most of them knew none of it. Eliot looked up, and Quentin was looking directly at him.

He continued, “It’s complicated here too, but Eliot is who I want to be with. And I just need everyone to fucking... _believe me_ when I say that.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the room as his words hung heavy in the air.

Eliot was. Speechless. 

He’d been dumb. He’d been _so dumb_.

Quentin stared at him, his jaw clenched and his eyes pleading. Eliot couldn’t get the thoughts swirling around in his head to form into coherent words. He opened his mouth to try and nothing came out.

Quentin scoffed and shook his head. He pushed his chair back roughly then rose from the table.

“Q, wait,” Eliot said.

Quentin didn’t wait. He left the room, and moments later, they heard the front door slam. Everyone looked to Eliot, and Eliot looked to Julia.

She was giving him a look that was equal parts annoyed and understanding.

“Give him a minute,” she said. “He’ll come back after he cools off.”

Penny asked, “What the fuck did I just walk into?”

Josh cleared his throat, “This turkey is delicious.”

“Shut up, Josh,” Margo snapped.

He looked down sheepishly and nodded.

Eliot rose from the table too and dropped his napkin onto his plate as he turned to leave. No one made a move to stop him. He went straight upstairs and to his bedroom, shutting the door behind him with a flick of his fingers. He groaned loudly and pushed his hair away from his face as he paced from one end of the room to the other.

It was a firm knock on the door that made him stop.

“What?” he bit out, more aggressively than he’d intended.

The door opened, and Margo slipped inside. She folded her arms across her chest and looked at him.

“What the fuck was that?” she asked.

“That,” Eliot said, pointing in the general direction of the kitchen, “was me fucking everything up. Again.”

Margo rolled her eyes and scoffed. He stopped pacing as she walked towards him.

“Stop being such a damn drama queen,” she said. “I swear, what is it with you boys and--”

“He asked me to be with him, and I said no,” he said. She stopped and raised an eyebrow at him. He clarified, “During the quest. After the mosaic.”

She was quiet for a second.

“Well, shit,” she said.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

He sat down on the end of his bed, and Margo sunk down next to him. 

“I was gonna tell him,” he said, “after I got my body back. It was pretty much the only thing keeping me going.”

Margo took his hand wordlessly, and he entwined their fingers.

He went on, “But then I came back, and he’d changed. It seemed like he’d moved on, and I figured I had my chance and blew it. And now…” He trailed off, not entirely sure where the end of that sentence was going. _Now_ was a clusterfuck of his own design. An Eliot Waugh original.

“El,” Margo said, kindly but in the way that let him know she was about to tell him how stupid he was being. He looked at her. “If you had seen Quentin while you were gone, you’d know that he absolutely did not move on.”

He opened his mouth, but she shook her head. She said, “He was a wreck, El. I honestly don’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t have done to get you back.”

He pursed his lips and looked around the room as he processed that. 

“Well, I guess I fucked all of that up,” he said quietly.

Margo shuffled around a bit until she pulled her phone out of her pocket. He watched curiously as she flipped through her photos. Then she passed it to him. The photo of him and Q from the Christmas tree farm was in front of him, but not the one where they’d been posing. Instead, it was one she’d taken while they were looking at each other. Their arms were wrapped around each other, and even Eliot could see how in love they looked. Not just him, but Quentin too.

“You didn’t fuck anything up, El,” she said softly. “Quentin loves you. Sure, you might have pissed him off, but you can fix it. You have that chance.”

He stared at the photo for a few seconds longer, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he began to form an idea.

He asked, “Can you airdrop me that picture?”

Margo patted his knee and said, “Yeah, I can.”

Two blocks away, Quentin was glaring at a pomeranian.

Well, more specifically, he was sitting on a park bench and glaring in the general direction where a pomeranian had just appeared. He’d just needed some fresh air. 

He honestly hadn’t meant for any of that to come out, but he was so damn angry. Once again, Eliot had iced him out after the night before and wasn’t fucking _listening_ to him. Then Penny and Kady had pushed him, and well, it just kind of all came pouring out of him.

He knew he’d fucked up, one hundred percent. His main goal at the end of this whole thing had been just to hold onto Eliot’s friendship, and there was zero chance of that now. Eliot would most likely pack his bags and go back to Fillory with Margo, never to be seen again. It was the logical thing for him to do, and the worst part is that Quentin couldn’t even blame him. Maybe they’d be better off that way. 

He sighed.

He just needed some time before he could be ready to go back and face that.

So, he sat there on his park bench and wondered idly what the pomeranian’s owners were doing at the park on Christmas day. Had they stormed out of a family Christmas too? Or were they just out for a nice post-dinner stroll? He thought it might be nice to have a dog. It would give him an excuse to go outside and something else to be concerned about keeping alive. Then he remembered Eliot’s comment about getting a pet the other day and looked away with a frown. Maybe he’d get a house plant instead.

Then his phone buzzed in his coat pocket. He thought about ignoring it because it was probably just Julia, telling him to come back. He’d talk to her later.

The longer he sat there though, staring as the sun slowly disappeared behind the tree line, curiosity got the better of him. When he fished his phone out of his pocket and clicked the lock button, he was surprised to see an Instagram notification.

_Eliot Waugh has tagged you in a photo._

He swiped the notification and waited for the app to open. When it did, he almost dropped his phone.

It was a photo of them at the Christmas tree farm in front of the tree but not one he remembered taking. They were cozied up together and staring into each other’s eyes. It looked like there was no one else in the world except for them, and he felt a pang in his chest at how very tender it looked. They looked like they were in love.

He scrolled down to the caption.

“ _Peaches and plums, motherfucker. That means I love you, by the way. And I’m sorry._ ” 

Quentin brought his hand to his mouth as he stared at the words.

He had to go back right now. He had to get to Eliot.

He practically ran the whole two blocks, unashamedly, as the few people wandering through the streets gave him strange looks. When he reached the apartment, Eliot was sitting on the steps outside.

He came to a stop a few feet away, and Eliot looked up at him.

“You came back,” he said, a hint of wonder in his voice.

Quentin could only nod as he smiled, fighting back the tears stinging his eyes.

He swallowed around the feeling.

“Did you mean it?” he asked. 

Eliot nodded and rose from the steps.

“Yeah, I did,” he said. He took a step forward then stopped. “I love you so goddamn much, Q, and I’m sorry I couldn’t believe you.” He looked to the side and pursed his lips together as his eyes searched the empty space. Then he looked back at Quentin and squared his shoulders. “The truth is, I think you're probably the love of my life, and that scared the hell out of me. So, I ran.”

Quentin took a step closer.

He asked, “And now?”

A pained look crossed Eliot’s face, and he said, “The only thing I’m scared of now is losing you.”

He was staring at Quentin like he was his last hope in the entire world, heart on his sleeve and there for the taking. Quentin smiled at him.

“Well, that’s never gonna happen,” he said.

Eliot visibly nearly collapsed under the relief of those words, and they both rushed towards each other. Eliot caught him and held him tightly as Quentin buried his face in his chest.

“I love you,” Eliot breathed. He kissed the top of Quentin’s head then his temple. “ _I love you_.”

Quentin lifted his head and looked into Eliot’s tear-filled eyes.

“I love you, too,” he whispered. 

Eliot brought his hand up to gently slide it around the side of his neck, and Quentin leaned up on his toes. Eliot smiled at him, small but sure, and then kissed him. 

And Quentin knew, in his soul, that it was the start of forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited to be finishing this up right before Christmas, just as planned!! Thank you to everyone who's been reading along with me. I've had a lot of fun here. Comments are always appreciated because I love hearing what you think, but I'm glad you're here regardless. Happy holidays!! Here's to a 2020 with more happy endings.


End file.
